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Original URL: http://www.cnet.com/news/judge-recommends-online-court-without-lawyers/
[...] You're in a dispute over money. It's not a vast amount of money, but sometimes it's precisely these sorts of disputes that incite the highest emotions.
You feel cheated, robbed.
But then you have to hire a lawyer to defend you. Which is a cost and guarantees you nothing.
So Lord Justice Briggs, a senior British judge, has come up with a new solution: an online court for civil cases featuring claims of less than £25,000 (around $32,850).
This online court is part of his recommendations for reforming the British justice system. Yes, the one that Brits are always telling you is perfect.
The idea is that there would be user-friendly rules and that lawyers would be largely, or even entirely, superfluous.
There's another characteristic of an online court that moves the judge. He says it would be "less adversarial, more investigative."
Perhaps the lord justice has yet to acquaint himself with the interpersonal and expository skills of many who frequent Twitter and other internet forums.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday August 01 2016, @05:10PM
Its called Small Claims Court.
In most states Small Claims is a lawyer free zone, before a magistrate/judge where claimant and defendant are expected to present their own case and provide their own documentation.
No great knowledge of the law is expected, and neither party may bring a lawyer. The Judge will apply the law and award a judgment to one or both parties that has the force of law.
Some states have an arbitration route that they try to steer adversaries through before they see a judge, where a city/county/state arbitration service tries to settle things and work out agreements for payments etc. .
It seems to work well enough, for the size of the cases involved. Its still a big enough pain in the ass to sue someone in small claims that many people work it out or let it slide before going through the bother.
Taking that process, where you face real people in the same room and real judges or arbitrators, and moving to an impersonal on-line environment just seems like so much opportunity for heel-digging-in, trolling, and rambling arguments, that the chance for success seems small indeed,
Perhaps the Judge should be "sentenced" to a year of participation as an Anonymous Coward on any of several on line forums (such as SN or Reddit) where they can judge for themselves just how often anyone's mind is ever changed by on-line arguments.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Monday August 01 2016, @05:28PM
If an online argument changes my mind, the effect is not usually immediate unless I am clearly wrong.
But, I do a lot of introspection, so I may be weird.
I recall a USENET argument I participated in back in the day. I was like: "I need more information, and will have to get back to you." Never did. I don't even recall the exact subject.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday August 01 2016, @07:07PM
Agreed, slowly over time my positions have changed, But just as often I've found the popular line of reasoning NOT convincing over time, even when I agreed with it initially. (Full disclosure: I'm actually starting to LIKE systemd. The Horrors!)
Of course that's not useful in a legal adversarial situation, where you are likely to be rewarded or punished in a short sharp shock.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday August 01 2016, @07:20PM
Doing it on-line opens the "small claims court" up to many various forms of abuse. E.g., in the small claims court the judge can see how well each participant is, and whether he's being coached from the side-lines.
This proposal isn't guaranteed to be a bad idea, but it sure isn't clearly a good one.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.